


She Walked Him Home

by ToTillAGarden



Series: Healing: A post-Stolen Century Anthology [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, F/M, and ocs but thats bc julia needed friends, im back, the amount of time it took me to find the magnus/julia ship tag is disappointing btw, this time with love and cooties, trigger warning btw!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 13:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11441877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToTillAGarden/pseuds/ToTillAGarden
Summary: Magnus, too, needed to find a way to heal - but it took him a while to realize that he didn't have to do it alone.





	She Walked Him Home

**Author's Note:**

> I ended up writing Magnus next; almost halfway there! Thanks so much for all the feedback - I had a small block (about 2000 words worth of it before I started this draft of the fic, so not actually that small I guess?) and your comments are what kept me going, so I hope this is as good as the first two!
> 
> Two things before you read:
> 
> 1\. In the end, this turned out to be Julia's story just as much as Magnus's - which is good, in one sense, because I don't know how good I am at staying in Magnus's character - and as a result, it's slightly fluffier than the other two!  
> Hopefully it should give you feelings nonetheless. (Though if I did break character for Magnus a bit, please, please please let me know!!! I want to improve, obviously)
> 
> and 2. Because this story is mostly from Julia's point of view, I did have to provide her with a background, and that includes creating her friends! So in the middle section of this fic, you will find some characters you've never heard of before - I guess they're ocs? - but if you have trouble keeping track of who's who, look at the notes at the end of the fic for some help with that.

_“Oh, Jules - After you’re done, can you go check on Magnus?”_  
_“Your new apprentice? Why would he still be there that late at night?”_  
_“It’s a long story - do you want me to explain?”_  
_“No Dad, you know I’m rushing, I’ll go check, bye, love you!”_  
_“Bye, honey, love you too, stay safe!”_  
_“I will!”_

“Magnus?” It was past midnight when Julia creaked the door open of the Hammer and Tongs per her father’s request. She hadn’t understood why he’d ask it - how long could the guy work? - but as she peeked in and found most of the room still lit, she knew he was right after all. “Magnus? You there?”  
It was only when she fully opened the door when she found him; he slept over the bench he was working on with a light snore, yet by his murmuring and fidgeting in his sleep she could tell his rest wasn’t very peaceful. “Magnus… Wake up….”  
“I’m busy…”  
“You’re not busy, you’re sleeping.” She laughed, and put her hand on his shoulder, this time shaking him as she said “Magnus, wake up!”  
His eyes flickered open in a daze, and he blinked a few times, gauging his surroundings before looking at her. “What… Did I fall asleep?”  
“On your first day on the job, no less.”  
“Oh… Shit.” He wiped his eyes, then stood up and stretched before looking at Julia again. “Have we met?”  
“I don’t think so.” She extended her hand. “I’m Julia."  
“Magnus.” He shook her hand. “Though I think you already knew that.”  
"I figured it out." She smiled. "You're lucky Dad told me to come check on you, otherwise you'd be here all night and still have to work tomorrow."  
"Dad?"  
"Steven Waxman? My dad? The one who runs this place?"  
"Oh, you're Julia, Steven's daughter..." He laughed. "Didn't put two and two together."  
She laughed too; and it was then, in that sleepy daze, that Magnus first fell in love with that laugh. It had a gentility fitting the time of night yet still retained Julia’s heartiness and spirit, somehow managing to capture her intelligence, energy, kindness, and unbelievable heart all at once - and, of course, it didn’t fail to express how ridiculous she found Magnus to be at that moment, to his slight embarrassment. (Embarrassment, the kind that flared at a stereotypical childhood crush, was a new feeling to Magnus - he knew even with the memory loss that he wasn’t at all the type to care about what people thought of him - but there was something _different_ about Julia.)  
Magnus scratched the back of his head. “We should go.”  
“Yeah.” Julia turned around and started heading towards the door. “After this, I don’t think Dad will expect you to come that early, but time is still precious.”  
He nodded, and began to follow her out. “Do you have keys?”  
She held them up in her hand, letting them jingle around, before closing the door behind him as he walked out. “You do know the way home, right? We’re going the same way, so if not you can follow me, but I can’t help you find your own house.”  
“…”  
“Magnus?” She turned to him.  
He stood by the entrance, just staring in front of him. His eyes were wide, and expression blank; as opposed to his earlier sleepy daze, Julia then saw Magnus in a state of shock. “Magnus, you ok?”  
“It’s dark.”  
She laughed - less of an endearing, lovable one and more of a nervous one. “Yeah, it’s 1 AM. You scared of the dark or something?”  
“No… It just hasn’t been this dark since….”  
“Since what?”  
He looked at her for a brief moment, and she never forgot the look she saw on his face. It was pained, almost. Confused. There was fear in there, but it wasn’t fear of the dark - it was that the dark should have reminded him of something greater, but he had no idea what it was.  
And just as quickly as she saw it, it was gone, and was replaced with a Magnus lost in his own thoughts before answering her question. “I don’t know.”  
She froze, for a second - it was hard to find something to say after that - and then felt her hand slip into his, almost instinctively. “It’s okay, Magnus. I’ll walk you home.”

~

Since that day, Julia had seen Magnus around a lot, both in and out of her father's shop - Raven's Roost was small, and that was how it was with everyone - but any sign of trauma Magnus had shown that night seemed gone during the day. Her dad noted that he slept in a lot more than usual, and that he was never a morning person even when he was late - his work seemed sloppier, as if he was too tired to be precise - but besides that, he seemed fine. But she didn't forget that night - how he was still in that daze as she walked him back to the residential district, how as soon as they entered his neighborhood he led her to his house with his eyes closed, having memorized his address and the streets around his house as if they could disappear at any moment - and it came back to her every time she went out with her friends late at night.  
It was one of those nights that she saw him again: they had gone to the tavern as they sometimes did, just to hang out and drink a little; her friend Quincy knew the band that was playing in the background that evening, and had convinced them to come listen. Julia had gone to get them refills when she noticed Magnus sitting at the bar, an empty mug in hand; he seemed out of focus, again, but she couldn't tell how much of that was due to alcohol and how much wasn't.  
"Magnus?"  
"Oh.... Hey Jules." His words didn't seem slurred as much as his voice seemed heavy, as if he was more tired than drunk.  
"It's Julia."  
"Sorry, Julia." He put his mug down. "What brings you here?"  
"Just hanging out." She nodded towards her friends. "And you?"  
"You know..." He held up his mug.  
"You're here for the drinks."  
"Yeah."  
It was quiet, for a moment; but then the silence was broken by the voices of her friends approaching the bar.  
"Yo Julia, who's that?" Quincy peeked out from behind her chair to look at Magnus.  
"That's Magnus, my dad's new apprentice." She lifted the halfling up and placed him on her lap. "Magnus, the small one is Quincy, and the taller ones are Casey, Tess, and Jack."  
Magnus straightened up and put his mug down. "It's nice to meet you all."  
After their chorus of "Nice to meet you too"'s, Quincy hopped off of Julia's lap and stood next to Magnus. "Alone at the bar, huh? I know what that's like."  
Tess gave him a look of disapproval. "Quincy, you're being rude. And besides, you're not alone anymore!"  
"It's alright." Magnus's expression softened. "I know what I signed up for when I came here."  
"Which is why I can't trust you to stay here." Julia laughed; her nervous laugh, again.  
"Why?" Jack asked, his voice quieter than its usual hush. "He looks like he can hold his alcohol."  
"Yeah, but no one can hold deep-seeded emotional trauma." Casey blurted out, getting confused looks from his friends. "What? It was kind of obvious."  
Magnus laughed. "I never was any good at hiding my emotions. But you're right, Julia, I should go. I'll see you around?" He began to stand up.  
"Yeah, I'll see you- Magnus, don't fall!!" She held her arms out as he stumbled backward, clearly dizzy, yet he caught himself last minute before falling onto her. "Okay, you know what? We're walking you home."

~~

After that night, Julia never really saw Magnus in the same light. She was always more concerned about him when she saw him, that was true, but as they were walking home and Magnus opened up a bit she began to understand him more. He was vulnerable despite his size and physical strength, but also kind, funny, strong-willed, and smarter than she thought; he was a fighter through and through, but he seemed, at that time, to be at war with his own thoughts. So she kept an eye out for him, but it was the casual interactions later - whether it was starting conversations in her dad’s shop or inviting him to go out with her friends - that really made her fall in love with him. She loved Magnus for his smiles and his carpentry skill and the way he gave piggyback rides; she loved how he took every opportunity he had, how he read books aloud to the animals in the park and was confident they could understand him, and how he always had a box of (store-bought, but still good) cookies at home in case someone came to visit.  
She never saw him at the bar again, but he never told her if he stopped going until the day she caught him heading over there.  
She was going back home as she saw him walk past her - still sober, but in that same daze, the same desperate look on his face that she saw when he told her and her friends, through the alcohol, just how much he wished to know what he had forgot. Yet she approached him casually - her voice shaking, a bit - and asked him where he was going, as if she hadn't already known.  
"Yo Magnus! What brings you here?"  
"Oh hey, Julia." Magnus shook his head as if trying to clear it. "I just needed a drink."  
She nodded in understanding. "Do you _have_ to get one? Or will something else distract you just as well?"  
"It sounds like you have a plan."  
"Magnus Burnsides, you have known me for almost a full year; do I ever _not_ have a plan?" They both laughed after that; it was a true statement, but so typical of Julia Magnus couldn't help but laugh.  
"True. How are you distracting me, then?"  
Julia thought about it a bit. "Have you ever been at the edge of town, where the cliffs are?"  
"Not yet." He admitted, knowing it was a popular spot but realizing going that far from home wasn't something he had done since he moved in.  
"So we'll go there! You can see the stars and the waterfalls, and we can talk or something."  
"Talking does sound less boring than drinking alone," he admitted. "Take it away then, tour guide."

They walked for a while, past downtown and the craftsmen's quarter and the edge of town and off into the distance, where the roads were gone and the only sound was the faint rush of waterfalls far below them, and it was a lot darker than the faint glow of the town, and they sat down on the ground by one of the cliffs and just stared, for a moment. And then they talked. They talked about not knowing constellations and about the upcoming election for governor; they talked about childhood and how Magnus wanted to get a dog; Julia told him the long story about how she met her friends and Magnus told her about his hope to one day find the friends he lost, about how the first thing he remembers from the past year is waking up with a letter from a friend he didn't remember telling him about his new home. He told her how at one point, he felt like everyone knew him better than he knew himself. But the subject changed pretty quickly; from there, they bet on who could win at arm wrestling and Magnus lost, they talked about what Julia wanted to do with her life and whether it was carpentry, they taught each other their favorite childhood games, laughed every time Magnus's stomach rumbled, and debated whether Magnus could have possibly gotten into college; but sometimes, they could spend minutes just lying on the ground, staring at the sky.  
They didn't go home until about 3 am that night. They were tired, and Magnus was the happiest he had been in a long, long time; yet he still felt a twinge of nervousness when he asked Julia if that was a date.  
"Yeah, I think." She seemed relieved, yet Magnus was a bit too distracted to tell.  
"So can I call you Jules now?"  
"Only if I get to call you Maggie."  
"Deal." He laughed, and gave her one of his signature bear hugs, and as she hugged him back, he felt the same twinge of familiarity whenever he was grasping on a memory, and almost faltered. Yet when he heard Julia's laugh, felt her breath on his face, he felt calmer again, slightly more grounded, and said: "Jules, can you walk me home?"

**Author's Note:**

> Some character notes and then some bonus tidbits that didn't make it into the fic:
> 
> Julia's four friends are Quincy, Jack, Tess, and Casey: Quincy's a halfling bard with a lot of spunk and sometimes snark, Jack is a very shy yet also pretty smart human cleric with some good one-liners, Casey is an elven wizard with brilliance and a surprising amount of empathy, and Tess is a half-elven paladin who's outspoken and strong. Tess and Julia are closest - they're basically twins personality-wise - and while Magnus loves them all, it's Casey who understands him most (and gets the most information out of him on his walk home). They all, later, become top members in the fight against Governor Kalen, pitching in both on the front lines and behind the scenes.
> 
>  
> 
> Now for the bonus content:
> 
> Julia walking Magnus home became a tradition of theirs; as soon as they became a couple they did it every time they went out together, whether it was to dates or to work or otherwise. When they moved in together on the day they got engaged, it became more symbolic than anything, but their walks home were still one of the more special moments of their day, up until the last night he saw her.
> 
> As referenced during their first date, the first thing Magnus clearly remembered was waking up on a mattress in his bedroom and finding a letter on the floor next to him, held there by one of his wooden ducks. I've written the full letter, but it basically tells him everything he needs to know about his new life: that there are groceries on the kitchen counter, that there's a job offer waiting for him, and that his workshop is fully supplied. It was signed -L, for Lucretia, but he spent the longest time trying to figure out who this L might be; he didn't realize that she could be the voice he heard in his dreams, telling him that she loved him and was sorry.
> 
> Magnus had a really hard time functioning after waking up in Raven's Roost; until his job interview, he had trouble leaving his house, spending hours locked up in his workshop, took the time to memorize everything around him, hyper-focusing on everything he encountered, and kind of isolated himself. Going outside for that interview actually scared him, just because he had to face how much he didn't know about his surroundings. That's why he didn't leave the shop that night; after finally becoming familiar to the place, entering the unknown scared him all over again. (The dark, meanwhile, scared him because the last time he was in that kind of darkness was when he walked into Lucretia's room as she fed her journal to Fisher.)


End file.
